Hi guys!

When CSA was mentioned in the good group, I thought I saw T being triggered: she got tense and breathed harder. But I've never mentioned that before today.

For the first half hour we talked about how I knew something about her that I wasn't supposed to know. I felt guilty. It was like I had accidentally seen her naked (her words). And that would interfere with my idealisation of her.

This (idealisation) is an internal conflict for me. I have always tried to put her on a pedestal with one hand and knock her down with the other.

Anyway, half an hour in, I told her what I had seen: she was triggered by talk of CSA, and I thought that it was something personal.

She refuted the whole scenario: she hadn't been triggered and she'd never been abused. I was wrong.

But how would I have felt if I was right? I thought about this, and I realised that (beyond all reason) I would feel ashamed that I hadn't been there to protect her.

And then I realised this was another case of transference, but this time she was my daughter. It's a rough world, and sooner or later my daughter is going to get hurt. And there is nothing I can do to prevent it.

Worse: when she was a child she would often wake up screaming with sore feet, and there was nothing I could do about it. Not even stroke her hair and rub her feet? My wife always did that, leaving nothing for me to do. I was helpless in the face of my daughter's pain, and I still am.